DOVER -- Cold and flu season are upon us. Sniffling, sneezing and coughing can be heard from every cubicle, corner store and classroom throughout the Garrison City. If it seems like there’s a drugstore on every corner these days…well you might say it’s a Dover tradition.

Over the past century dozens of pharmacies, chemists and drug stores have come and gone; names like W.H. Vickery and Sons Apothecaries, Newmans, Kennards, Lothrops and Pinkam, and the Third Street Pharmacy.

They may be gone, but they are not altogether forgotten as they live on at the Woodman Institute Museum. Hundreds of bottles and boxes from pills and potions line the shelves in the main exhibit hall of the museum. And in the Keefe house, among the local treasures, are even more containers of ‘cures’.

The labels on the bottles offer relief for a variety of ailments and make for great reading.

How about May Breath - a purifying deodorant for mouth and stomach? Did your parents or grandparents every try to give you Paregoric? Headache powders also come in a wide variety.

Then there are the calling cards…advertising cards that detail the establishment’s services. One such card reads “George Varney - purveyor of drugs, chemicals and toilet articles.”

Dover Drug, located for many years on the corner of Broadway and Central Avenue, proclaims itself “New Hampshire’s Largest Drug Store.”

McGrails was the “popular priced drug house”, while Charles Tufts boasted of a large supply of brushes, perfumery, elegant cosmetics and fancy soaps. You can never have too much fancy soap, right?

This impressive drug display, on loan to the museum, is part of a Dover bottle collector’s exhibit that is being arranged for the coming season.

Tonic, whiskey, soda and milk bottles representing Dover dairies and bottlers are being assembled for the museum’s April 3rd opening.

The Woodman Institute Museum, at 182 Central Avenue in Dover, will open soon but you can go online now to preview the galleries, sign up for email updates and get the latest on our upcoming season at WoodmanInstituteMuseum.org.